MSNBC’s Chris Matthews reacted to the bizarre car chase and shooting in Washington Thursday the way he would react to a sparrow falling out of the sky, or news that Krakatoa was building up to another epic eruption: It must be the Republicans’ fault!
MATTHEWS: Good evening, I’m Chris Matthews up in Boston. We’re going to get to the growing anger over the government shutdown in just a minute, the growing anger at Ted Cruz. The backroom Republican fight over whether to make this an even bigger battle on the debt ceiling. And the stunts that Republicans are pulling to make the gullible out there think that it’s the Democrats who closed down the government. But let me start tonight with this, the government shutdown was shattered just hours ago by the death of a woman who just minutes before that had crashed her car into the [sic] White House gate. A city already tensed up with a compound of unpaid salaries, required essential services, and an uncertain future was shaken by the crash at the White House gates. A televised car chase, the violent death of a woman driver, a young child in that vehicle witnessing the horrible end. (video footage from the chase with police) The death will no doubt become an iconic tragedy in this period of government shutdown driven by the hatred of the President’s Affordable Care Act and the compulsion of his critics on the hard right to punish him politically. Whatever mix of causes drove the woman to this day, the event is now a vivid tragedy played out in the streets of the nation’s capital.”
As Matthews is surely aware by now, the driver had mental problems that had nothing to do with the shutdown. The MSNBC anchor is also surely aware that the Republicans have offered compromise after compromise to end the shutdown, but President Obama and Sen. Harry Reid refuse to negotiate — even if they have to go out of their way to hurt veterans and kids with cancer.
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